 Good morning, everyone. Would someone be willing to open us in prayer before we begin? Jesus, we thank you for this beautiful day that you've blessed us with. And Lord, as we are going to have our class on revivals, visitations and and learn about more of walking and moving in the supernatural. Lord, I pray that we will just be inspired and that we will learn something new today. And thank you, Jesus, for one time in the name of Amen. Okay, so today we'll begin in chapter 7. Looking at what it takes for us, what it would take for us to see a revival in our day. Let me just share screen. Okay, so again, like yesterday, we will have a few scriptures that we look at. So if someone would be willing to read Acts 2, 17 and 18 and then someone else, James 5, 7 and 8. Acts 2 verse 17 and 18. Yes. Acts 2 verse 17 and 18. 17 and 18 here. Acts 2 verse 17 and 18. And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, and that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. And on my men servants and on my maid servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days and they shall prophesy. Thank you and someone read James 5, 7 and 8. James chapter 5, 7 and 8. Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord, see how the former waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it, until it receives the early and later in. You also be patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Thank you. So we see from these two passages one in Acts 2 that God promised that he would pour out his spirit globally, right? It says on all flesh. And we see that start in the book of Acts, but we expect that it's only going to grow and increase, that there will be more outpourings of the Holy Spirit. And there will be more experiences of seeing the Holy Spirit move across the globe as the coming of the Lord draws near. Like we saw in James 5, 7 and 8, as it draws close to the time of the harvest, the later in happens and then the harvest happens. And when we look at the coming of the Lord, that is the harvest of the souls. That's what we are looking forward to. And so we expect that before that harvest comes, there will be a later in of the Holy Spirit coming in power. And so when we're looking through these revivals, we're looking at it with that in mind that this is what we're expecting God to do in greater ways as Jesus' return draws nearer and nearer. And so we need to be prepared for that. We look at what is the need for revival as we are waiting for Christ's return with someone read John 6.63. It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh, profits, nothing. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life. Yes, so now I mean with the use of media, with the use of technology and like there are so many ways in which people are being reached with the gospel. It's easy for us to think that we don't need the Holy Spirit in the ways that we've read about in these revivals because at those times they didn't have the kind of technology. The kind of means to propagate the gospel in the ways that we do now, right? But in John 6.63 we're reminded that it's the Holy Spirit who brings life. So while we have all of this technology available to us, we have a lot more in terms of means to reach people. We need the Holy Spirit to empower all of those things that we do. Even if we're using media, we're using technology, we're using the Internet. All of those things will only be fruitful if it is filled with the Holy Spirit's leading and the Holy Spirit's power. The second one to move from glory to glory and be the kind of people God intended us to be. There are three verses there, Psalm 84-7, Romans 1-17 and 2 Corinthians 3-18. Psalm 84-7, they go from strength to strength. Every one of them appears before God in Zion. So in Psalm 84 it's talking about the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. So as the people draw closer to Zion, they're growing from strength to strength. And so just a reminder, as we draw closer to standing before God in His presence, that we are called to be growing from strength to strength. Romans 1-17. Romans 1-17. For in the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. Thank you. So just that reminder in Romans 1-17 that faith is what carries us. Our faith from the beginning to the end is what carries us through this journey with Christ. And so we're called to not only be growing from strength to strength, but from faith to faith. And second Corinthians 3-18. Second Corinthians 3-18. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the spirit of the Lord. So these three things as believers growing from strength to strength, from faith to faith, from glory to glory, that is what we are called to do. It's not for us to remain where we are spiritually at this time, but to constantly be seeking for more of the Lord and growing in our work with the Lord. And so that's why we're pressing in for more of the Holy Spirit, desiring more of the Holy Spirit in our midst as a church, to see more of that in our lives as believers and as a church. So to see the gathering in of the harvest, we see in revivals that the lost, the number of people coming to Christ was just like an unbelievable, phenomenal number, right? It was not something that any human program could achieve. Even if they were organizing big evangelistic meetings, whatever it was, the impact of revivals is much, much greater than these kinds of meetings that otherwise have been held. And so if we want to see that, and that need is great in our world today, that there are so many people who still do not know Christ, who still have not heard the gospel, who still have not been saved. And so we need a revival because we need God to move in that way. We need His Spirit to truly draw people to Him, to convict people, to transform people's lives. And so just recognizing that as Christ's return draws closer, the need for the harvest also is very, very great. And so we can only do that with the power of the Spirit. And that's why there's a need for revival. The last one, we want to see the church impacting the world as salt and light. So that's what we are called as a church to do, to be having impact on our society, to be influencing, seeing the society transformed. And that's what we've seen happen in revivals, right? For sin to be broken, for bondages in society to be broken, for corruption to be removed, for all of those things in government, in regular society. And for the church to have that impact, we need a revival. So those are some of the reasons why we want to be pressing in for more of the Holy Spirit for a revival in our midst, in the present as a church. So what are some hindrances to revival? There are lots listed here. One is ignorance. So people just don't know, right? We have the privilege of being here, of studying, of looking at all of these revivals, knowing how God has moved, how we can expect God to move, and what we can do to pursue God's presence the way people pursued his presence in the past. And so that kind of knowledge is not there in the church at large, right? And so because there is this ignorance of how God has moved and how God wants to move in our midst, nobody's actually seeking it. No one's desiring it. No one's pursuing it. And what happens as a result is that we are just happy with where we are. So the worst thing is that people will start to fight against the Holy Spirit's move in our midst, or the best thing is that they just don't know that God wants to move in this way. And so that will be a hindrance to the Holy Spirit moving in our midst. Another issue is misunderstanding. So we've seen in revivals, like even in the midst of revivals, where people have fought against what was happening because they felt that it was inappropriate. This is not how the Holy Spirit moves. So misunderstanding is when we don't know how the Holy Spirit might move, or we think the Holy Spirit will move in a certain way, and then he moves in a way that is unexpected. And so we resist that because it's not what we expected or not what we thought it would be. And so it's important for us to look at what happened in past revivals and to look at the Book of Acts to see how did the Holy Spirit move and when we are seeing something like that in our midst, how can we test whether it really is from God and whether it's really a move of the Holy Spirit. Another hindrance is sin and worldliness. In Summonery James 4.4 verse. James chapter 4 verse 4, Adulteress and Adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Yeah, so sadly there is a lot of worldliness in the church. There's a lot of sin in the church and because of that we haven't opened ourselves up or prepared ourselves for the Holy Spirit to come. So this verse in James 4.4 reminds us that if we are pursuing the things of this world then that's indirect opposition to the things of God. And if we are pursuing the world then we are obviously not preparing ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit wants to move. And so there has to be a turning away from sin, a turning away from the world and starting to pursue the things of God for the Holy Spirit to move in our midst. Another hindrance is complacency. Someone can read Matthew 5.6 and someone else John 7.37 to 39. Matthew chapter 5 verse 6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled. Then John 7.37 to 39. If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow reverse of living water. But this he spoke concerning the Spirit whom those believing in him would receive for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not it glorified. So both these verses it's emphasizing that hunger and thirst for more of God. Now what happens very easily for us as Christians as believers is that we get very satisfied with where we are spiritually. Like we feel like okay we're doing okay we are walking with the Lord whatever we are spending time in prayer, spending time in the Word but we don't have this desire to see more of God. We don't have that hunger and thirst and that is something that we should keep praying for that God will keep renewing that desire for more of him because if we don't if he doesn't do that within us it's very easy for us to just lay kind of be satisfied with where we are and then we don't have we're not creating that space for God to come and fill us more. Let's look at Matthew 1112 and Isaiah 647. Matthew 1112. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Isaiah 647. And there is no one who calls your name who stares himself up to take hold of you. For you have hidden your face from us and have consumed us because of our iniquities. So both of these things remind us that we have to take hold of the things of God. So in Matthew 1112 it's talking about the kingdom of God progressing as it's going out in the form of a battle, right? So to take over more land or to take over more people there has to be someone who's actually fighting for that. It's not just going to happen. If we look at the Israelites taking over the promised land they had to go in and actually fight the enemies to receive that land that God had promised to them. It wasn't that they could just walk in and it was this. That is a picture of what it means to advance the kingdom of heaven. To be going in and battling against spiritual forces. To be doing that in prayer. To be doing that in our reaching out to people. To be fighting spiritual battles. To be fasting, to be praying all of these things. To see the kingdom of heaven advance in our midst. And so if we are in this place of just being lazy we don't want to make those sacrifices. We don't want to fight those battles. Then we're not going to see the kingdom of heaven advance in our midst. So it'll happen because God is going to do what he has to do, right? Before he comes back. But whether we'll be part of that is questionable because we are not going to make those sacrifices that we won't see it in our midst. Another is indifference. Revelation 3, 16 and 17. Can someone read that? Matthew 5, 3. So then because you are lukewarm and nether called non-hot I will vomit you out of my mouth because you say I am rich, have become wealthy and have need of nothing. And do not know that you are rich, miserable, poor, blind and nicked. Matthew 5, 3. We blestar the poor in his spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So both of these Revelation 3 is talking about the church in Laodicea that had come to this place of lukewarmness in their faith. They were not passionate about God. They were not pursuing God with that kind of hunger and thirst. So even though we have been filled by the Holy Spirit for us to always maintain this poverty of spirit to say we want more, we desire more of the Holy Spirit because in that posture of poverty is where we are blestar. Matthew 5, 3 says. Another is resistance to change. So revival doesn't come the way we are prepared for it often times and often times it means that we change our plans the way we want to do things. So if we are in any way resistant to that then that will be a hindrance to God moving in our midst. If we do want to change our plans, we do want to change our strategies our ways of doing things. If we want to stick to our church programs, our church events all of these things and do them exactly the way we have them planned we are not willing to create room for the Holy Spirit to move then that will be a hindrance to revival in our midst. Busyness is another hindrance. We'll read Luke 10, 41, 42 and Acts 6, 3 and 4. Luke 10, 41, 42. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things but one thing is needed and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away from her. Acts 6, verse 3 and 4. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. So here we see in that first passage the story of Mary and Martha that Martha was busy doing good things which oftentimes is what the church is doing. Like we are doing a lot of good things but we are getting the best thing which is spending time in the presence of the Lord and so that can be a hindrance to us experiencing revival if we are so busy with archer-achactivity if we are so busy with whatever we already have planned that we are not actually taking time to be in God's presence to actually be learning from Him, receiving from Him and drawing from Him and His presence. The other thing is what we read in Acts 6, 3 and 4. We see here the apostles were very wise in the way they planned how they did things, right? So they didn't get distracted by the administrative work that was necessary. So it's not that that work was unnecessary. It was really important work for someone to be taking care of the food that was being distributed to the people and so they recognized the importance of it but they also recognized that that was not what they should be focusing on. They handed that over to other people and they focused on what was important for them which was prayer and reaching the word. So to be very focused in what are we supposed to be doing in this time and not get busy with things that may be good but are not the best things to know, okay, at this time we should be focusing on just seeking the Lord. So let's cancel all our programs. Let's cancel all the other things that we have planned. Let's just be in this place of waiting on the Lord. If that's what it takes, we should be willing to do that. And sometimes it's hard because we have our church calendar. We have our expected events. Everyone wants the youth meeting. Everyone wants the women's fellowship, whatever it is. It's hard to make changes like that to allow room for the Holy Spirit to move. And then the last one is divisiveness. Someone can read Psalm 133, 1-3. Psalms 1-13 verse 1-3. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil poured upon the head running down on the beard. The beard of Aaron running down on the edge of his garment. It is like the dew of Hammon descending upon the mountains of Jaya. For there the Lord commanded the blessed life forever more. So when we looked at so many of these revivals, we see that one thing that was present in all of these revivals was unity. It was usually leaders from different churches coming together. Or if we look at even that, the Hernat community where there was a lot of strife within the community, but then they addressed that and they repented of that. And then as they were waiting on God in prayer, God moved in power. So when there is that kind of discord or disunity within the church, whether it's across denominational lines or within a local church as well, that can hinder the move of the Holy Spirit because there isn't unity in the midst of us. We all should be in one accord seeking God, but if that is not there, then for the Holy Spirit to come and move in our hearts is going to be, there will be a hindrance in our own hearts to receive the move of the Holy Spirit. So like we read in Psalm 133, for the blessings of God to flow, for his anointing to flow, for life and refreshing to flow, there first needs to be unity among the people. And so if we are seeing that in our churches to address that kind of disunity and discord, to allow for God to move in our midst. So there's this prayer in our books. I'm just going to give us a minute to pray this over ourselves because it's a prayer for our own eyes to be opened. We'll pray this for ourselves and then move to the next one. Okay, so we'll look at, I think it's important, just the words of that prayer was important for us to recognize that personally these hindrances we looked at could be things in our own lives, right? That will not allow us to seek God and to allow God to move in our lives. So not only to think about it from a church level but from a personal level are these things present in my life and if so, praying for God to expose those things, to remove those things and allow us to be ready for his coming. We look at characteristics of a genuine revival or visitation. Can someone read Matthew 7.16-20? You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by the fruits, you will know them. So when we see or when we are experiencing or hearing about the Holy Spirit moving in a place, how do we know whether what is happening is truly a genuine move of the Holy Spirit? Why is that important? One is if we think it is not genuine, we may not be open to it and we will miss out on what God is doing. So to be judging with wisdom, on the other hand, if it isn't really something that is genuine, we shouldn't get carried away with wrong teaching or something that is not of God, something that is going to take us away from the truth. So to be very clear when we are looking at the move of the Holy Spirit to be able to judge for ourselves, is this something that we want to be a part of and we want to see happening in our midst? So the first thing is that it's something that can't be manufactured. I think we read John 6.63 before this and it talks about the spirit being the source of life, that it's not something, the flesh itself can't give us life, but it is through the spirit and through the word of God that life comes to people. And so if it is a true revival, it will be something that the Holy Spirit is doing. It's not about entertainment. It's not about a great leader. It's not about someone who is very charismatic, not someone who is very impressive. It's not about the technology or the techniques that are being used. All of those things maybe will help spread what is being done, but it has to be truly spirit filled. It has to be from the spirit because that's where true life, true life is birthed through the spirit. And kind of piggybacking on that is that Jesus is exalted. It's not an individual. So if this is truly a revival that is from God, we should see that the name of Jesus is being glorified. That there isn't any leader or any denomination or any church that is seeking glory in it. So the recent Asbury University revival that happened as I was reading about it, the leaders that were so humble throughout the whole thing, they said, this is not something about us and we don't want to talk about ourselves in this at all. This is something that God is doing. And so we want to, like whenever we're talking about this revival, we want it to be about what God is doing. We want it to be about God. And so for that to be the attitude of the people who are experiencing the revival, they're not boasting in themselves, but they're only making it about Jesus. The third thing is that there is a proclamation of sound doctrine. So if someone can read Acts 242. Acts 242. They devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. So this is something to test for in a revival. Is sound doctrine, is the teaching that is coming out of this revival something that is scriptural? Are they emphasizing the cross? Are they emphasizing the gospel? Are they emphasizing salvation through Jesus? Are they emphasizing transformed lives? And are identity increased? Are all of these things coming out of what is being taught? Or is what being taught somehow diverging from what scripture teaches? If there is some divergence, then we should not be too quick to receive that to accept it. So always going back to the truth of scripture and to the doctrine that is the foundation of our faith. The fourth is there will be unity in the spirit. So in seeing these revivals, we should be seeing division broken down. Philippians 2 1 talks about fellowship of the spirit and love within the body of Christ. So being able to see that amongst the leaders who are part of the revival and also within across denominations that it shouldn't become one denomination or one church that is being highlighted rather that there is an expression of love and unity between the leaders, between churches in that revival. The fifth is that people are brought into intimacy, wholeness and Christlikeness. So many, when we look at these revivals, when we look at the great awakenings, there were people who would be barking like dogs. There would be people who were hugging trees, people who were falling over. All those things were very strange to see. And so many times we just question, we look at them and we're like, really do we want to see this happen in our midst? But also we have to look at what is the fruit? How are people being transformed spiritually? Are people genuinely being saved? Are their lives being transformed? And if so, then those physical things shouldn't be the hindrance to us receiving what is happening. So to look for that genuine transformation in people's lives, genuine change in the way they are living to see that happening. And if that is happening, that is proof that it is a real move of God. Six, there is lasting fruit of transformed lives. So this will not, obviously we have to wait and see. So as soon as the revival happens, we might see a lot of good things happen. But we want to see after that is what happened continuing to have an impact. Is there continuous change in the lives of people? Is there continuous blessings upon those ministries that were started during the revival or ministries that were impacted by the revival? And this will happen more post revival to look back and see what has happened as a result of the revival. So for example, in the Toronto revivals, we look at two ministries that were impacted by that. One is the Ministry of Nikki Gumbel, who started the Alpha courses. So he was part of that. His church in England, in London, England, was impacted by the Toronto revival, which happened in Canada. So during that time, he had also launched the Alpha courses and it was a very small course. There were very few people coming to it initially in 1992, there were just 100 people who were attending the Alpha course. But within two years from 100 people, it became 26,700 people. And then by 2015, the Alpha course was being run in 160 countries and there were 35,000 courses being run every year with over 15 million people attending. So that is in 2015. Present day, I'm not sure about the numbers of how it's grown since then. But to see the impact of that revival, this ministry didn't stop after the revival. It actually grew and continued to grow even after the revival itself was not continuing with that same kind of fervor. The ministry's impact continued to grow. So that is proof of something that was a true genuine work of the Holy Spirit. So there's a quote from Nicky Gumbel who started the Alpha course. He says, I believe it is no coincidence, the coincidence that the present move of the Holy Spirit in the Toronto blessing has come at the same time as the explosion of the Alpha courses. I think the two go together. So to recognize that that ministry grew and the fruit of that ministry continued to grow because this was genuinely a work of the Holy Spirit. Another ministry was the Heidi Baker ministry. In 1995, Heidi Baker and Roland Baker were working in Mozambique. They were working with orphans in Mozambique and they were serving about 300 children at that time. But they were experiencing financial stress and Heidi was going through a lot of physical sickness. She was very exhausted, very tired. In fact, she was experiencing pneumonia at that time and blood poisoning during this Toronto blessing that was happening revival in Toronto. But she wanted to go to it and the doctors told her, you can't make this journey because of your sickness. She still chose to do that 30 hour travel to Toronto and when she went there, she just found that as soon as she arrived, she experienced just a renewal of strength and through the meetings there, every day she experienced God just restoring her strength physically and she talked about how through that time as people were praying for her, she was going up to people for prayer and she spent a lot of time receiving, ministering from people. It was a very hard thing for her because she had been ministering to people, she had been preaching, teaching, but to just stop and receive from people was a difficult thing. But through that time, God spoke to her. She actually had this vision of God coming to her, of thousands of children coming to her and she cried out to God and said, there are too many children, I can't serve the needs of all of these children. And she had this vision of Jesus himself coming to her and giving her a part of his body and saying, feed the children and that piece of Jesus' body turned into bread and she fed the children and then he gave her the blood and water from his side and said to feed, to satisfy their thirst and she gave that cup and that satisfied the needs of the children. And so it was through this, and in that vision Jesus said there will always be enough bread and drink because I paid the price with my life. Don't be afraid, only believe. And the next day after she had this vision, Randy Clark who was part of that revival prayed over her and he prophesied that the death would hear, the lame would walk blind would see through her work in Mozambique. So she went back to Mozambique with just supernatural strength that she didn't have before she had arrived at Toronto. From there, their ministry grew. So when the book was written in 2015, there were 10,000 children being fed a day through this ministry. There were 4,000 families being fed. There were more than 10,000 churches that they had planted. Five Bible schools, three primary schools and a school of missions. So to see how that ministry just grew powerfully because she had been part of the Toronto revival. So she was impacted and she was able to take that and impact so much of Mozambique in Africa because of what she had experienced. So we will look at, we won't go into this today but we look at how can we experience a visitation of God. Can we experience a visitation of God and how can we experience it next week when we come back. So any thoughts, anything you want to share, something that inspired you, something that you learned. I think for me personally, even as I've been teaching this it's that first hindrance that we talked about of ignorance, right? Being able to read about these revivals has just been so educational for me personally to learn about what God has done, how he has moved, how we can actually prepare ourselves. So that's just a hindrance that's removed just knowing that God has moved in this way. God wants to move in this way and being able to then pursue it is a huge thing. What I really liked from this Heidi Baker story is she's used to ministering to people teaching, teaching and all that but now she has literally stepped down herself from where she is and just received from people but just by doing that she received more power, more blessings in her life. That's what, like even us we have to learn to do the same. And especially once we've started a ministry, once we're already leading ministries to recognize that we also need to find places where we are being ministered to that we shouldn't always be in a place where we are serving or we are doing we also need to come to a place where we are receiving from others because we need that personally, we need to be fed, we need to be ministered to as well. Okay, thank you all, we will close and meet next week.